The present invention relates to a pump system for use in heat exchange applications, and more specifically, for use in microprocessor heat dissipation or other applications requiring high heat transfer with minimal pump power requirements.
Microprocessors and many other electronic devices are conventionally cooled with air or liquid acting as the heat exchange medium. Typically, these fluids are forced to move through the heat exchanger by fans or pumps that move the fluid across the surface to be cooled.
However, as the energy densities in these devices increase, and as they become smaller and yet increasingly functional, heat dissipation by the use of these conventional techniques becomes unacceptable. The increasingly smaller scale of these devices and their correspondingly higher heat transfer requirements pose design considerations that cannot be met by conventional heat dissipation techniques. These smaller devices frequently demand greater quantities of heat exchange fluid flowing at greater velocities, resulting in increased pump power requirements. However, the physical packaging sizes of the systems are desired to be increasingly compact, as well, posing limitations on pump power.
Thus, a need exists for a heat dissipation technique that provides for compactness in size and high heat transfer capabilities while requiring minimal pump power.
The present invention relates to a pump system for use in a heat exchange application, having a pump chamber with a fluid inlet and a fluid outlet. A rotating device is contained within the pump chamber, for causing a fluid to move across a surface to be cooled. The surface to be cooled forms an integral part of the pump chamber, so that the fluid as it passes through the rotating device also passes across the surface to be cooled, resulting in a heat transfer between the surface and the fluid.
More particularly, the rotating device may be an impeller. A means for driving the rotating device can also be configured to drive a means for cooling the fluid. The means for driving the rotating device can be a motor, with motor windings comprising the stator and the rotor configured to operate as the rotating device. Additionally, the fluid inlet may be connected with a passageway for the fluid in such a manner that, before the fluid flows into the pump chamber, the fluid passes through the passageway and across an additional surface to be cooled, resulting in a heat transfer between the additional surface and the fluid.
Another aspect of the invention includes having the surface to be cooled integrally connected with the pump chamber, so that the pump chamber is separable from the surface to be cooled without disturbing the fluid circuit of the heat exchange application.